>          When the receiver-SMTP makes "final delivery" of a message,
>          then it MUST pass the MAIL FROM: address from the SMTP envelope
>          with the message, for use if an error notification message must
>          be sent later (see Section 5.3.3).  There is an analogous
 
        Perhaps because I'm not a technically-trained person, I did not
find the above statement especially clear or helpful.  I don't know
whether "it MUST pass the MAIL FROM: address" means it must USE that
address or pass it by.  I raise this question because I've had
problems in the past with the folks at ALASKA, when they sent all mail
bounces back to the original poster named in the FROM line.  That
created MASSIVE confusion on my large, active list.  People thought
that their messages somehow hadn't been posted (in spite of the list's
default being "repro"), since they received an official-sounding
message from a "postmaster" telling them this.  So they then tried to
re-send the message, sometimes succeeding and further cluttering up the
list, and sometimes getting a message from listserv saying that they'd
already posted that message.  They were then even MORE confused, and I
spent an absurd amount of time dealing with their confusion.
 
        So, my question is, what IS the proper way for undeliverable
list mail to be handled by a postmaster if the list is Send= Private and
there's a REPLY-TO address pointing back to the list?  My
understanding is that in such a situation bounces should NOT be sent
to the address in the FROM line but rather to the REPLY-To address,
where they will be rejected and sent on to the Errors-To address.
Am I right?
 
        Joan Korenman, WMST-L Listowner   KORENMAN@UMBC
        Univ. of MD. Baltimore County     [log in to unmask]
        Baltimore, Maryland 21228-5398